Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're reminded
Speaker 1: yet again not to depend on AI.
Speaker 2: I asked chatpt for ten names.
Speaker 3: I want to hear them.
Speaker 2: Sporty Sisters, game changers here, Hose here, O's here, Hers.
Speaker 3: You your hose were.
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 3: Hoes Please I can't.
Speaker 1: That's actually the new tagline for the sale right here,
Speaker 1: Hose power.
Speaker 2: Players Coract please us the cold open victory fixes No.
Speaker 4: Nothing else matters Alex.
Speaker 3: Nothing else matters here, Hoes.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, never change, Alex, never change, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to tell you how we
Speaker 1: ended up at here Hose. Plus we got Cougar's porta
Speaker 1: potties and a whole lot of tea to spill. Plus
Speaker 1: we're hopping, flipping and jumping with blind Landing hosts Ari Sapristine.
Speaker 1: He'll give you the tips in fact, you need for
Speaker 1: all the gymnastics apparatus finals this weekend.
Speaker 3: It's all coming up right after this. It's Friay, and
Speaker 3: here's what you need to know today.
Speaker 1: First of all, Saturday is Mech's birthday, Meche.
Speaker 3: How old are you gonna be? Twenty seven?
Speaker 1: Ew?
Speaker 3: Super gross? Do you have any plans.
Speaker 4: Uh right, now, hang out with my parents and possibly
Speaker 4: go to the park.
Speaker 3: You sound like a twenty seven year old. No, sixty
Speaker 3: seven or twenty seven.
Speaker 4: Look, I've been told I give grandparent energy, so that's
Speaker 4: fine with me.
Speaker 3: That's fine. I've been told.
Speaker 4: Also, one of my closest friends said, I look like
Speaker 4: I eat peas, So I feel like it all tracks a.
Speaker 3: Good bege big grandparent energy.
Speaker 1: Love it, We love it. Happy birthday me, She have
Speaker 1: a great weekend. Also, shout out to my parents. Saturday
Speaker 1: is also my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, and they have
Speaker 1: spent like thirty plus years of it almost working together
Speaker 1: as well. I truly don't know how they did it.
Speaker 1: It feels unfathomable to me. Put shout out to fifty
Speaker 1: years Nancy and Rick Spain. Okay, let's get to the sports.
Speaker 1: In gymnastics, the all around final took place yesterday, with
Speaker 1: Simone Biles winning gold, Brazil's Rebecca Andrage picking up silver,
Speaker 1: and Sunny Lee coming in with bronze. We're gonna go
Speaker 1: deep on gymnastics in just a bit on this show,
Speaker 1: so you know we're gonna get to all.
Speaker 3: The good stuff.
Speaker 1: But let's just get a few facts out into the
Speaker 1: world right now. First, with the gold, Biles becomes the
Speaker 1: first woman to win two Olympic All around titles since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. She also breaks a one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty year old record, becoming the first US gymnast to
Speaker 1: win six Olympic medals. Also, Brazil's Rebecca Andrage whose name
Speaker 1: is Portuguese and actually is Habeka, but we say Rebecca anyway.
Speaker 1: She wins her second straight Olympic All Around silver. And
Speaker 1: get this, she has torn her acl three times and
Speaker 1: somehow she came back every time and got better.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: Finally, shout out Sonny Lee, Tokyo gold medalist in this event.
Speaker 1: She's overcome so much these last three years, including two
Speaker 1: kidney diseases, to return to the Olympic podium and get
Speaker 1: that bronze. So shout out to Sunny and shout out
Speaker 1: to her floor music. I freaking love that music. I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna start blasting it to clean the house.
Speaker 1: Gold medal and the dishes, bitch. We're gonna have more
Speaker 1: on the gymnastics, plus the upcoming individual apparatus competitions coming
Speaker 1: up later in the show. In swimming, the US claimed
Speaker 1: silver in the four by two hundred meter relay, finishing
Speaker 1: two point seven eight seconds behind Australia. Katie Ladeki swam
Speaker 1: the third leg of the relay for the US, and
Speaker 1: with the silver medal, she becomes the most decorated American
Speaker 1: woman at the Olympics ever. That's right, Ladeki now has
Speaker 1: thirteen career medals, eight gold for silver and one bronze,
Speaker 1: and she still got the eight hundred meters to swim.
Speaker 1: Also in the pool, Kate Douglas won the two hundred
Speaker 1: meter breaststroke, setting an American record and becoming the first
Speaker 1: US athlete to win Olympic gold in the event since
Speaker 1: twenty twelve Okay. In soccer, the US women's national team
Speaker 1: finished as the top team in Group B and they'll
Speaker 1: face Japan in the quarterfinals at nine am Eastern on
Speaker 1: Saturday in Paris. You can watch on USA Network, Telemundo,
Speaker 1: and Peacock. Japan opened its tournament with a narrow two
Speaker 1: to one loss to reigning World Cup champion Spain, and
Speaker 1: then they won their next two games, two to one
Speaker 1: against Brazil and three to one against Nigeria. Japan's six
Speaker 1: goals have all come from different players. Meanwhile, for the US,
Speaker 1: Mele Swanson leads the scoring after pool play with three goals.
Speaker 1: Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith have each scored two. The
Speaker 1: past bodes well for the US in this matchup with Japan.
Speaker 1: Entering the twenty twenty four Olympics. The US has a
Speaker 1: thirty one to one and eight record against Japan. The
Speaker 1: one loss in those forty matches came in a friendly
Speaker 1: back in twenty twelve, but worth noting, Japan also won
Speaker 1: the twenty eleven World Cup Final over the un US
Speaker 1: and penalties, which technically goes down as a draw because
Speaker 1: of the penalties, but it certainly stands out in the
Speaker 1: minds of US players and fans as a major tournament
Speaker 1: match to remember.
Speaker 3: Be sure to watch the US nine am on Saturday
Speaker 3: in hoops.
Speaker 1: Sunday at eleven am, Eastern Team USA Basketball takes on
Speaker 1: Germany in their last game of group play before the quarterfinals.
Speaker 1: Germany has multiple WNBA players on its roster, including Dallas
Speaker 1: Wings superstar Satusaboly, who put up thirty three points in
Speaker 1: our teams win over.
Speaker 3: Japan on Thursday.
Speaker 1: You can catch USA Basketball on the USA Network and
Speaker 1: in three x three. The US plays France today at
Speaker 1: seven am Eastern and then Canada at twelve pm Eastern
Speaker 1: on USA.
Speaker 3: They'll close out pool.
Speaker 1: Play on Saturday at one oh five pm Eastern against China.
Speaker 1: They've had a real rough start to the tournament. They
Speaker 1: got to perform in those three games to have any
Speaker 1: chance of advancing. Of the eight teams, only the top
Speaker 1: six make it to the knockout stage. In volleyball, the
Speaker 1: US indoor team continues its Olympic gold medal defense with
Speaker 1: a pool a match against France on Sunday at seven
Speaker 1: am Eastern on NBC. After beating defending world champs Serbia
Speaker 1: in a five set thriller on Wednesday, the US can
Speaker 1: secure a spot in the quarterfinals with a win on Sunday.
Speaker 1: Track gets going with a lot of qualifying and preliminary
Speaker 1: rounds today and Saturday, highlighted by the triple jump final
Speaker 1: and the race for the world's fastest woman get back.
Speaker 1: Queen Shaker Richardson, the reigning one hundred meters world champion,
Speaker 1: is hoping to turn that world title into Olympic gold.
Speaker 1: The one hundred meter final is Saturday at three to
Speaker 1: twenty pm Eastern Sunday slate is highlighted by the high
Speaker 1: jump final at one fifty Eastern. Finally, since I make
Speaker 1: the rules around here, quick shout out to a dude,
Speaker 1: Michael Grady, Cornell class of twenty nineteen, who helped tam
Speaker 1: Usa snap a sixty four year drought by winning the
Speaker 1: gold medal in the men's four rowing event at Cornell.
Speaker 3: We see no gender.
Speaker 1: We're all just big red bears.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So there's a ton of talk online about the women's
Speaker 1: boxing competition, and we're going to get into gender testing
Speaker 1: and the Olympics in detail next week, but for now,
Speaker 1: I did want to make a quick note on what's
Speaker 1: causing all this conversation. Okay, So, two female boxers in
Speaker 1: these Paris Games were disqualified from the twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: World Championships after failing gender eligibility tests. At that event,
Speaker 1: Algeria's Iman Khalif and Chinese Type a's Lin Uting both
Speaker 1: won medals in the women's competition, before boxing's then federation,
Speaker 1: the IBA, announced that they'd failed gender eligibility tests and
Speaker 1: strip them of their medals. In a statement on Thursday,
Speaker 1: the IOC said that at the World Championship event, the
Speaker 1: two athletes were quote victims of a sudden and arbitrary
Speaker 1: decision by the IBA towards the end of the IBA
Speaker 1: World Championships in twenty twenty three. They were suddenly disqualified
Speaker 1: without any due process unquote. The statement then goes on
Speaker 1: to say, quote, the current aggression against these two athletes
Speaker 1: is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken
Speaker 1: without any proper procedure, especially considering that these athletes had
Speaker 1: been competing in top level competition for many years. Lynn
Speaker 1: has been an elite level amateur boxer for a decade
Speaker 1: and Khalif for six years. Both also already fought in
Speaker 1: the Tokyo Games. The IBA Boxing's federation has long been
Speaker 1: plagued by corruption scandals. It was suspended from twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty three, and then fully banished by the
Speaker 1: IOC last year. This week, the IOC said that both
Speaker 1: boxers met criteria to compete in Paris and had been
Speaker 1: cleared to fight under the rules for the competition. So
Speaker 1: on Thursday, Algeria's Khalif won her bout against Italy's Angela
Speaker 1: Karini when Karini stopped fighting after forty six seconds Karani
Speaker 1: was punched in the nose and shortly afterwards said she
Speaker 1: didn't want to fight anymore. According to her coach, the
Speaker 1: fight sparked discussions, many of them started or spurred on
Speaker 1: by people on social media with many followers but few facts.
Speaker 1: Those with a high profile have a responsibility to get
Speaker 1: things right, and many are choosing not to do the
Speaker 1: work to get educated or even it would appear read
Speaker 1: a single damn story before they went on TV to
Speaker 1: talk about it, for instance, ESPN's Pat McAfee, who spent
Speaker 1: five minutes talking about transgender competitors, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: Mark Adams, the ioc IS chief spokesman, said on Thursday,
Speaker 1: quote the two fighters were not transgender athletes and should
Speaker 1: not be described as such.
Speaker 3: Adams went on to.
Speaker 1: Say, quote everyone competing in the women's category is complying
Speaker 1: with the competition eligibility rules. We'll get into this more
Speaker 1: next week, including the long fraught history of gender testing
Speaker 1: and how athletes with DSDs that stands for differences in
Speaker 1: sex development have been impacted by both changing regulations and
Speaker 1: the challenges that arise when sports are categorized in a
Speaker 1: binary way that human beings simply are not I just
Speaker 1: want to remind and encourage people to handle these topics
Speaker 1: with care. They're tricky and they're tough, and I get that,
Speaker 1: and it is okay to have opinions about some of
Speaker 1: these things, but it serves absolutely no one to spread
Speaker 1: falsehoods or attack without facts.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Moving on, as we continue to debate the best name
Speaker 1: for our show listeners, I'd like to thank Leah Kennedy
Speaker 1: for emailing us and reminding us not to rely on AI.
Speaker 1: Here's Leah quote high Team, good game, first and foremost.
Speaker 3: I love this podcast.
Speaker 1: It's sports, it's female legends, it's comedy, it's everything. I
Speaker 1: wanted to try my hand at ideas for squad names,
Speaker 1: and as a modern gal, I turned to Generative.
Speaker 3: AI to help with some ideas.
Speaker 1: I laughed out loud at the top suggestion it gave me,
Speaker 1: and I just had to share winning wenches. This says
Speaker 1: so much about the problems with jen AI and our
Speaker 1: internet conversations about women in general.
Speaker 3: It sure does, Leah. Okay, so Leah continues, So.
Speaker 1: I went back to my own brain and a few suggestions,
Speaker 1: taking some inspiration from Julie Foudy's Dope Village for Laughter,
Speaker 1: permitted another favorite podcast and came up with one Good
Speaker 1: Game Nation, two Spainer's Gamers, three Spain Squad.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you, Leah.
Speaker 1: Winning Wenches is literally insane, but your other suggestions are cute.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to keep the name about the show and
Speaker 3: not me, so less.
Speaker 1: Spain and more Good Game But Spain Gamers does have
Speaker 1: a really nice ring to it. So okay, I put
Speaker 1: together a shortlist of finalists and we're all gonna pick together,
Speaker 1: probably unless I make this a Chicago election and I
Speaker 1: stuffed the ballot box vote several times and make sure
Speaker 1: that my favorite wins.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 1: Okay, drum roll please, Good Game Nation GGN for short
Speaker 1: gigin gig Giggling Giggles, the Gigglers, the giggles, Good Game Nation.
Speaker 1: Some form of that breakers as in glass ceiling breakers
Speaker 1: and game breakers, not to be confused with Olympic breakers,
Speaker 1: because I know not all of y'all can move like that.
Speaker 3: That might be tough.
Speaker 1: Spanish Armada goonies for the win slices as an orange
Speaker 1: slices that you get after a good game.
Speaker 3: My little slices. I love saying my little slices. I
Speaker 3: think you know what my favorite.
Speaker 1: Is, but I'm open to the vote.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Grab your leotard and chock up those hands, because when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're talking all things gymnastics.
Speaker 3: With Ari Saperstein joining us now.
Speaker 1: Is the creator of the award winning podcast Blind Landing,
Speaker 1: a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR,
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal, Vox, The New Yorker, and The Advocate.
Speaker 1: He used to be a chainsaw crew member for the
Speaker 1: Southeast Conservation Corps, and he's an artist who makes tote bags, cartoons,
Speaker 1: animated shorts, ceramic bulls and more.
Speaker 3: It's Ari Sapristine. What a renaissance man.
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to laugh too loud as to make
Speaker 2: the audio levels go crazy spiking for that's That's That's
Speaker 2: definitely my favorite intro I've I've ever gotten. You got
Speaker 2: every side job, side hustle I've ever had in there.
Speaker 2: So thank you, Sarah, and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You and my producer Alex can chat about being multifaceted
Speaker 1: in your in your expressions of art. She's an artist
Speaker 1: as well, so I was obviously creep on your insta.
Speaker 1: We're here to talk gymnastics, though, and you've done a
Speaker 1: lot of gymnastics reporting for your podcast Blind Landing. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering when you were watching either the team final or
Speaker 1: the all around, is there a factor story that popped
Speaker 1: into your mind, like, Oh, this is making me think
Speaker 1: of that conversation I had or that fact I learned,
Speaker 1: or I'm so glad I talked to this person because
Speaker 1: now I know X as I'm watching this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the number one headline thought that
Speaker 2: I have had watching gymnastics at the Olympics so far
Speaker 2: is that we are just seeing a new era of
Speaker 2: gymnasts that are challenging every presumption that we had historically
Speaker 2: as lay viewers about gymnastics. We're seeing older gymnasts than
Speaker 2: we've you know, comparatively than we've seen in an extremely
Speaker 2: long time. The majority of the US team is returning Olympians.
Speaker 2: The majority of them are in their twenties. They're the
Speaker 2: best team in the world. I think that says a
Speaker 2: lot about how the sport and the culture of the
Speaker 2: sport are now benefiting older athletes. We're seeing more athletes
Speaker 2: of color, We're seeing more expressions out there on the
Speaker 2: floor of different artistry and different identities. We're seeing a
Speaker 2: level of difficulty, of course, led by Simone Biles, that
Speaker 2: just is leaps and bounds from where the sport was
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago. I always it's impossible to talk about
Speaker 2: gymnastics without making a million unintentionalspins and turns ahead. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: so you know, yeah, it's that's my big headline from
Speaker 2: what I've been seeing out there at the parischemes.
Speaker 1: I've seen it too, and what I've loved is the joy.
Speaker 1: It used to feel so clenched. Everything felt so tight
Speaker 1: and clenched, and I've liked how even in the moments
Speaker 1: where Simona's had a little mistake, she has this smirk
Speaker 1: that she sends either to coaches or family or teammates
Speaker 1: on the sideline, almost to say, I'm disappointed, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to smirk my way through it, and then I'm
Speaker 1: going to smile because I'm leading this new culture of
Speaker 1: joy and freedom while performing, which is so much better
Speaker 1: to watch.
Speaker 3: It makes me happier for them.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the joy for a second here, because
Speaker 2: I just on blind landing had on Olympian Denusia Francis,
Speaker 2: who is on the board of British gymnastics that's also
Speaker 2: been going through cultural changes, competed at UCLA Gymnastics, a
Speaker 2: collegiate team known for their joy She's really been this
Speaker 2: person that's been a part of a new generation of
Speaker 2: leaders who are gymnasts that we're competing in a more
Speaker 2: joyless time ten to fifteen years ago, who've really wanted
Speaker 2: to change that. And so it's not just a coincidence
Speaker 2: or it's not just specific to the US team. It's
Speaker 2: an international thing and it's a concerted effort led by
Speaker 2: the generation that competed under a much more joyless time.
Speaker 2: That's thought, I think the sport doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: this way. And so we're also seeing USA Gymnastics now
Speaker 2: led by former gymnasts who also competed ten fifteen years ago,
Speaker 2: these people under the Marta Corole era, of course, under
Speaker 2: the Larry Nasser era, who are coming out of it
Speaker 2: and saying, yeah, we're going to make the sport safer
Speaker 2: in terms of physical abuse and sexual abuse, but also
Speaker 2: this emotional mental health aspect that we need to change
Speaker 2: involves this shouldn't have to be so stressful. So walking
Speaker 2: on eggshells, especially when there's so much pressure already, and
Speaker 2: so we're seeing Simone out there high fiving and dancing
Speaker 2: with their teammate Geordan Childs, who's like the poster child
Speaker 2: for that attitude.
Speaker 3: We're seeing it swinking mid event. Yeah, absolutely, how she's loose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, I think you're right to note
Speaker 2: that that it's It doesn't sound right related obviously to
Speaker 2: what we're seeing in the field of play, but it
Speaker 2: really is, because if you're more comfortable, you're gonna perform better.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about that across multiple events. We just
Speaker 1: had runner Nikki Hilts on the show and they talked
Speaker 1: about how just being fully and transparently themselves helped them
Speaker 1: run faster, compete better, fight harder at the end of
Speaker 1: tough races. Like it's just a truth throughout life, across everything.
Speaker 1: And it's been really really, really, really really fun to
Speaker 1: watch with this US gymnastics team. Okay, the big ones
Speaker 1: sort of are over. We got the team competition out
Speaker 1: of the way, we got the all around out of
Speaker 1: the way. Do you have any last minute thoughts on
Speaker 1: all around you got to get in or should we
Speaker 1: move on to individual apparatus?
Speaker 2: Of course that's top of mind for me because I
Speaker 2: just cannot believe how exciting and how close this competition
Speaker 2: was because we saw a gymnast be a true challenge
Speaker 2: to Simone Biles, who's been undefeated in her senior competition
Speaker 2: for the past eleven years. This gymnast, hebeca andraje who
Speaker 2: if Simone Biles wasn't around, we would be treating her
Speaker 2: like Simone Biles. She is, in my opinion, the second
Speaker 2: greatest gymnast who has ever lived. And we saw them
Speaker 2: go head to head at their physical peaks here and Simone,
Speaker 2: you know, ended up taking the title and winning her
Speaker 2: second Olympic all around, but man, the closeness of that
Speaker 2: race was so thrilling. And then the third place spot
Speaker 2: was three gymnasts who were all neck and neck right there.
Speaker 2: So you know, I mean, I think this is going
Speaker 2: to go down as one of the most exciting all
Speaker 2: around finals that we've seen in a very, very long time.
Speaker 1: I agree, I don't like being nervous for Simone, but
Speaker 1: when she wins at the end, I'm like, oh, good, competition,
Speaker 1: that was fun.
Speaker 3: That was fun.
Speaker 2: I was so nervous for everyone, the whole competition for everyone.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got the individual apparatus competitions this weekend
Speaker 1: and on Mondays. So help us be smarter while we're
Speaker 1: watching them. You got to give us one non American
Speaker 1: athlete to look for in each apparatus. It can be
Speaker 1: someone contending for gold or just someone with a great story,
Speaker 1: just something that will make us smarter. For the vault,
Speaker 1: bar's beam and floor.
Speaker 2: First up vault, it's the shortest event. It's you know,
Speaker 2: you just do one scale pushing off the vault table.
Speaker 2: And of course Simone's there. She's got her eponymous skill,
Speaker 2: the your chinko double pike that is about a point
Speaker 2: more than almost any other vaults, so that's why she's
Speaker 2: able to fall potentially and still wins. So whether or
Speaker 2: not she puts that to her feet will be interesting.
Speaker 2: She has fallen a couple of times in the past
Speaker 2: year on that scale. There's hebec Andreje again. A big
Speaker 2: theme of this Olympics is the matchup of Simone and
Speaker 2: Hebeca on multiple circumstances. And Habeca has been working on
Speaker 2: a new vault, the triple twisting your Chenko, and that
Speaker 2: would be named after her if she successfully competed it.
Speaker 2: We'll see if she goes for it. A couple gymnasts
Speaker 2: have submitted it over the past decade and no one's
Speaker 2: been able to put it to their feet in competition.
Speaker 2: You know, two more things with vault to pay attention
Speaker 2: to is that Jade Carey for the US is going
Speaker 2: to be in the vault final and we expect her
Speaker 2: to be a metal favorite. But at the last Olympics
Speaker 2: she balked on her final vault and just kind of
Speaker 2: did a tuck in the air. It seemed to get
Speaker 2: her steps wrong or something didn't metal. So this is
Speaker 2: part of this redemption tour. That's the phrase the US
Speaker 2: has been saying. And one other thing about the vault
Speaker 2: final lookout for is a South Korean and a North
Speaker 2: Korean gymnast qualified with the same score into it, and
Speaker 2: it's rare that we see North Korean people outside of
Speaker 2: North Korea, and the Olympics and sports competitions are really
Speaker 2: one of the circumstances. But it's just kind of fascinating
Speaker 2: to look at it through that geopolitical ends of foreseeing
Speaker 2: of course this political undertones out on the field of play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, those are awesome.
Speaker 2: Give us the bars, the leader on bars far and away.
Speaker 2: I know I'm saying a lot of hyperbolic titles. Greatest
Speaker 2: of all time here and there, the unquestionable greatest, uneven
Speaker 2: bars gymist who has ever lived is gonna win this
Speaker 2: title if she doesn't make a major mistake, even if
Speaker 2: she makes a major mistake, as long as she doesn't fall.
Speaker 2: And that is Khalia Nimore. And this is an athlete
Speaker 2: with a fascinating story that people should go look up
Speaker 2: the details of. But the thirty second recap is she
Speaker 2: is a French gymnast born in France who was competing
Speaker 2: for France and had a really contentious relationship with the
Speaker 2: French Federation. They wanted her to leave her gym train
Speaker 2: at the national gym. She didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2: She felt comfortable, again we're talking about what makes athletes
Speaker 2: feel good training with her coaches and they were being
Speaker 2: by all accounts, kind of spiteful and not putting her
Speaker 2: in to play. And so she switched nations to her
Speaker 2: dad's country of Algeria, and she's been competing for Algeria
Speaker 2: for the past year. And what she is doing for
Speaker 2: not just the nation of Algeria, but African gymnastics for
Speaker 2: the entire continent by making these finals by just showing
Speaker 2: up and being the first gymnast to represent Africa, the
Speaker 2: first gymnast to represent to win a medal for any
Speaker 2: African nation has just been so incredible. So watch her routine.
Speaker 2: And the one other routine I want to say to
Speaker 2: people is there's another gymnast in the bars final named
Speaker 2: Becky Downey, who competes for the UK. This is her
Speaker 2: third Olympics. She's thirty two years old, she's twice the
Speaker 2: age of some of the other finalists, and she's also
Speaker 2: a real medal contender. How to score in the team
Speaker 2: final that would put her on the podium. So those
Speaker 2: are two gymnasts. I think we all need to keep
Speaker 2: her eyes.
Speaker 1: Only quick aside before we move on. Please, I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with watching Olga Corbett's band routines on the bars, and
Speaker 1: I realized that they look absolutely terrible for your body,
Speaker 1: but they're also incredibly thrilling to watch.
Speaker 3: If Olga Corbett we're.
Speaker 1: Competing now based on what we saw in those routines,
Speaker 1: do you think she would be the best ever? Because
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to put wrap my head around anyone being
Speaker 1: better than those band routines.
Speaker 2: Olga Corbett was a gymist that was competing in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies who really innovated on the uneven bars, and
Speaker 2: right around that time in the seventies, gymnastics is at
Speaker 2: a turning point where it starts to look more like
Speaker 2: it looks today. But to be honest, what we saw
Speaker 2: fifty years ago, someone that's like really good at CrossFit
Speaker 2: could probably do. And now what we're seeing on bars,
Speaker 2: it is only several people that you know.
Speaker 1: So if Olga lived now and we taught her if
Speaker 1: oga again things based on what we saw all the
Speaker 1: way back then, she would be crushing I did she.
Speaker 2: Did Olga Corbett have the talent, have the preternatural talent too,
Speaker 2: if she lived in this era, make it far? You know,
Speaker 2: I think that that is very interesting hypothetical, And I
Speaker 2: imagine that honestly, any great Olympic champion like Olga Korbett,
Speaker 2: like not either two nice like Mary.
Speaker 1: Lou Rett hashtag team Olga. Okay, let's get to the
Speaker 1: balance beam.
Speaker 2: What you got in the balance beam final. There's a
Speaker 2: little known gymnast who's just kind of rising onto the
Speaker 2: scene that people should keep her eye on. Her name
Speaker 2: is Simone Files. I don't know if it's sort of
Speaker 2: ringing a bell for you, I think it's be lace belece. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure. I haven't heard it, you know,
Speaker 2: many times in my life. So Simone is a you know,
Speaker 2: qualified into the beam finals. The interesting thing about watching
Speaker 2: Simone at the Olympic Beam Finals is that at the
Speaker 2: last two games, Rio twenty sixteen Tokyo twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: she won bronze in the beam final both times, and
Speaker 2: the first time it was seen as this disappointment because
Speaker 2: it was the one gold me that she didn't win
Speaker 2: at those games, and people kind of like wouldn't mention
Speaker 2: it and she felt like ashamed of it. The second
Speaker 2: time she won the bronze, it was the one eighty
Speaker 2: opposite because that was the one event that she was
Speaker 2: able to come back to the Olympics after getting the
Speaker 2: twisties to do and compete, and so it had this
Speaker 2: total different meaning to her. I think if she got
Speaker 2: the bronze a third time, that would kind of feel
Speaker 2: like amazing in full circle, but I think that we
Speaker 2: could very well see her get the gold. So it's
Speaker 2: fascinating because it's almost like, no matter what color medal
Speaker 2: she may get it would have such meaning and significance.
Speaker 2: And her teammate Sunny Lee back at Olympic Trials, when
Speaker 2: I was talking to her in the press zone, she
Speaker 2: was saying that this is really the medal that she
Speaker 2: would love to win gold on, in particular, that she
Speaker 2: feels like has been a little underrated in her career,
Speaker 2: maybe hasn't hit in the most high pressure moments, and
Speaker 2: she feels like she could possibly do it.
Speaker 3: Okay, floor exercise, we.
Speaker 2: Got another Simone.
Speaker 3: Hebeca matchup.
Speaker 2: I mean, the audience is just tired for me saying
Speaker 2: that again and again and again, but it's just the truth.
Speaker 2: This is a case where it's definitely Simones to lose.
Speaker 2: As we saw in the Olympic all around final today,
Speaker 2: Simone scored one point higher than hebeca on floor. A
Speaker 2: fall is one point deduction, so it means that the
Speaker 2: cushion that Simone has going into a floor final is
Speaker 2: pretty significant. But the routine that I think folks should
Speaker 2: keep their eye on is another US competitor, Jordan Chiles.
Speaker 2: This is someone who I mentioned UCLA Gymnastics before about
Speaker 2: my co host Dinusia for the last pine landing episode
Speaker 2: that she went there UCLA gymnastics has been a main
Speaker 2: collegiate program that has been very big about supporting people
Speaker 2: who also compete elite at the Olympics and is really
Speaker 2: known for the dance on floor and the funness of
Speaker 2: the routines and the intricacy of the choreography. And so
Speaker 2: Jordan Chiles on Floor is going to go up last
Speaker 2: be the last gymnastics routine of the entire Olympics, and
Speaker 2: it will really be one to watch because it's arguably
Speaker 2: the most fun floor routine. I've got Beyonce in there.
Speaker 2: It's really a routine that she's had to push back
Speaker 2: against some officials that have told her to not use
Speaker 2: traditionally black music or some of the choreography that she does,
Speaker 2: fearing that it won't score well internationally. And she's kind
Speaker 2: of said, yeah, I don't know, man, I just want
Speaker 2: to be me out there and kind of gone against
Speaker 2: the grain to put together this routine that could definitely
Speaker 2: get her on the metal stand. She finished in third,
Speaker 2: qualified in third, and we could see her take that
Speaker 2: metal home.
Speaker 3: We love that.
Speaker 1: We love it so much and we love that Beyonce
Speaker 1: sent them all shout outs and then they got to
Speaker 1: do that opening ceremony video, the talking back and forth
Speaker 1: with her, which I can only imagine the mind blown
Speaker 1: situation when they got the call for that.
Speaker 3: Ari, thanks so much for the insight.
Speaker 1: I'm so much more excited, and I already was very
Speaker 1: excited to watch all these apps, Barradas Finals. Everybody check
Speaker 1: out blind landing the podcast. Also some figure skating on there.
Speaker 1: If you're a figure skating fans, you get gymnastics, figure skating,
Speaker 1: all the good stuff.
Speaker 3: Maybe is even some chainsaw talk.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ari, Thanks so much for having me really
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Time to pay the bills, time to make the donuts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we find out who looked around
Speaker 1: and found out Welcome back. Okay, So you heard me
Speaker 1: and Ari talking about the culture change in gymnastics, particularly
Speaker 1: a shift after the Marta and Bella Corola years. Well,
Speaker 1: a gymnast from those days Tokyo Olympia, Mikaela Skinner criticized
Speaker 1: the current gymnastics squad, and while we're totally empathetic to
Speaker 1: how our years in the toxicity and pressure of the
Speaker 1: Corolis might influence her opinion, we're just never here for
Speaker 1: unnecessarily taking shots at fellow athletes.
Speaker 3: Because when you do that, you might end up here.
Speaker 3: That's right, It's time.
Speaker 1: For figger around and find out Friday around and ooh.
Speaker 3: Buddy, this one's a doozy.
Speaker 1: So in case you don't remember the comments from Skinner
Speaker 1: on her YouTube channel back in July, here she is
Speaker 1: questioning the work ethic of Team USA's current gymnasts. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously a lot of girls don't work as hard.
Speaker 4: The girls just don't have the work ethic to get
Speaker 4: towere you need to be in gymnastics, you do have
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 1: I feel like a little aggressive and a little intent.
Speaker 3: Well, she couldn't have been more wrong.
Speaker 1: After the US one gold in the women's team final,
Speaker 1: Simone Biles took to Instagram posting a picture of herself
Speaker 1: and her teammates with the caption quote lack of talent,
Speaker 1: lazy Olympic champions and current and former teammates chimed in
Speaker 1: on the comments. Sunny Lee wrote, put a finger down
Speaker 1: if Simone Biles just ended you ed Mikayla Maroney, not
Speaker 1: to be confused with Mikayla Skinner wrote, it doesn't get
Speaker 1: more iconic than this.
Speaker 3: She surround and found out for real.
Speaker 1: Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my
Speaker 1: first name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people do not message Mikayla Maroney, she is not
Speaker 3: the one.
Speaker 1: Also, according to a post on Jordan Childs Instagram, Mikhayla
Speaker 1: Skinner has since blocked Simone Biles. After the team win,
Speaker 1: it was revealed that this year's gymnastics squad has a
Speaker 1: nickname of both the Golden Girls, a nod to their
Speaker 1: age and no doubt thanks to Mikayla Skinner, another nickname
Speaker 1: team around and find out.
Speaker 3: Ef around and fine find out.
Speaker 1: Let me just say, y'all loved seeing these absolute legends
Speaker 1: shut up Mikayla Skinner, including at a little leader on Twitter,
Speaker 1: who wrote, I can't express enough how much I love
Speaker 1: that Simone Biles stayed focused, took care of business, but
Speaker 1: did not forget to come back and take care of
Speaker 1: a hater as soon as she got her work squared away.
Speaker 1: May we all also at Joe moo Lungma on Twitter
Speaker 1: wrote in male sports, they would call what Skinner said
Speaker 1: bulletin board material. I'm fine going with that for female sports,
Speaker 1: but if women want to come up with their own
Speaker 1: term for it, please go right ahead. It'll almost certainly
Speaker 1: be better than bulletin board material. That's your key listeners.
Speaker 1: Send us your better version of bulletin board material at
Speaker 1: good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com, send it to me
Speaker 1: on social at Sarah Spain on Twitter. Try to beat
Speaker 1: this at Agent's nine hundred suggested vision board material or
Speaker 1: pinterest eaten good, which is absolutely incredible. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we can stop pinteresting good. It's so good, Okay fun.
Speaker 1: Little side note to shout out to Lindsay.
Speaker 3: Gibbs, who we love and has an incredible women's sports
Speaker 3: newsletter called power Plays. She reminded us that MICHAELA.
Speaker 1: Skinner also made news last summer because she had an
Speaker 1: elaborate gender reveal party with her husband Jonas Harmer, and
Speaker 1: they had a giant balloon covered light up sign that read.
Speaker 3: Baby Harmer.
Speaker 1: You know, like baby Harmer, but it just said baby Harmer.
Speaker 1: Just absolute gold, which you know is what this lazy
Speaker 1: ass team won. So I guess sip on that girl.
Speaker 1: Woof all that tea spill and it's given me a
Speaker 1: taste for more. So let's spill a little more tea
Speaker 1: ahem cafe in Paris. We've gathered some of the wildest juiciest,
Speaker 1: most dramatic stories we've.
Speaker 3: Heard come out of the Games.
Speaker 1: So pull up a chair, grab a croissant, and let's goss. First,
Speaker 1: a terrifying encounter for Canadian rugby captain Olivia Apps Okay, So,
Speaker 1: six weeks prior to the start of the Games, she
Speaker 1: was attacked by a cougar while hiking the animal. Guys,
Speaker 1: not Courtney Cox and Busy Phillips or me for that matter,
Speaker 1: Misha Okay, Olivia, her hiking companion, and their dogs all
Speaker 1: managed to escape, using bear spray to fend off the cougar.
Speaker 1: She was treated for a cougar byite and airlifted out
Speaker 1: of the park. And get this, she was back on
Speaker 1: the pitch mere days later, and now less than two
Speaker 1: months after the big cat bite. She and Team Canada
Speaker 1: secured as silver medal this week.
Speaker 3: Pretty good, Okay.
Speaker 1: Next up twenty six year old Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez,
Speaker 1: who revealed after her competition ended that she was seven
Speaker 1: months pregnant while competing in the individual women's saber competition
Speaker 1: at the Olympics. In a post on Instagram on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Nada wrote, what appears to you as two players on
Speaker 1: the podium. They were actually three. It was me, my competitor,
Speaker 1: and my yet to come to our world little baby.
Speaker 1: It's giving Serena at the Australian Open, It's giving Rihanna
Speaker 1: in the super Bowl. It's giving women could freaking do anything.
Speaker 1: She lost in the round of sixteen, but still she
Speaker 1: was seven months pregnant competing in the Olympics.
Speaker 3: And here's a fun fact for y'all.
Speaker 1: According to the Olympic Nerds over at Olympdia, at least
Speaker 1: twenty five athletes have competed at the Olympics while pregnant,
Speaker 1: but Hafez breaks the record for most pregnant athlete.
Speaker 3: Is that an official record? I feel like it should be.
Speaker 1: Also, with all those like swords around, it's badass. Last,
Speaker 1: but not least a lack of movement that would have
Speaker 1: made me move some bowels back. At US track Trials
Speaker 1: in June, before her semi final race in the four
Speaker 1: hundred meters, runner Kendall Ellis found herself trapped it a
Speaker 1: porta potty, pleading for someone to let her out. She
Speaker 1: was finally able to alert someone and made it to
Speaker 1: a race, which she won in a personal best time.
Speaker 1: Then she topped that mark in the final, winning the
Speaker 1: event and earning her spot in the Paris Olympics and
Speaker 1: the cherry on top of the near do do Sunday.
Speaker 1: Kendall has since partnered with Sharman toilet paper to keep
Speaker 1: her backside covered at the games. Gosh, we love a
Speaker 1: clever sponsorship. Enjoy the go Kendall, or enjoy the games. Okay,
Speaker 1: we love that you're listening, but we want you to
Speaker 1: get in the game every day too, So here's our
Speaker 1: good game play of the day. Vote on those listener names.
Speaker 3: This is it.
Speaker 1: I promise I'm not going to add anymore. Those are
Speaker 1: the finalists. Unless someone suggest something like no, no, no.
Speaker 3: I'm done. We're done. Those are the finalists.
Speaker 1: You have to vote on them at Sarah Space on Twitter,
Speaker 1: good game at wondermedianetwork dot com. You can even leave
Speaker 1: us a voicemail pleading for one in particular. Eight seven
Speaker 1: two two o four fifty seventy. It'll probably be a
Speaker 1: democratic process, but much like our country, I can't promise that. Also,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's easy watch
Speaker 1: Free Shit, rating eleventy out of five stars.
Speaker 3: Review We love free shit. Thank you to Breaking.
Speaker 1: Tea for sending everybody on the show tons of awesome
Speaker 1: women's sports gear. Misha and I are both wearing our
Speaker 1: shirts today. Thank you, Breaking Tea. Also, this is not
Speaker 1: an ad and we haven't been paid for this, but
Speaker 1: if you send us free shit, we might talk about it,
Speaker 1: especially if we love you like Breaking Tea.
Speaker 3: See how easy that was. Now it's your turn, rate
Speaker 3: and review.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening as always, Happy birthday, Happy anniversary, Mom
Speaker 1: and Dad.
Speaker 3: Good game, Ari, Good game Heroes. Fuck you Misha twenty seven?
Speaker 3: God damn it? What's up is this?
Speaker 1: This game? Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart
Speaker 1: women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Speaker 1: You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
Speaker 1: our producers are Alex Azzi and Misha Jones. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan.
Speaker 3: And Emily Rudder.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Jenny Kaplan, Emily Rudder, Brittany Martinez and
Speaker 1: Grace Lynch. Production assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm Your
Speaker 1: Host Sarah Spain